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Health committee Good morning, and thank you for having me here today. My name is Hilary Black, and I'm the founder of the first medical cannabis dispensary in the country, founded in 1997. In the interest of disclosure, I am also employed by a licensed producer, but I am here today representing
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee There is quite a lot of great research around medical cannabis. It's in large-scale human clinical trials that is really where the dearth of research is. We have to remember that we're talking about a plant that's been prohibited for almost 100 years, so for people who have been
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee As Jonathan said, there are some complications around cannabis because isn't patentable. My understanding would be that if the government allocated some resources and, from your side, encouraged research into the medical applications of cannabis rather than holding it back, then
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee Because of the current medical regulations at the ACMPR, we call the authorization to cannabis an authorization rather than calling it a prescription because it's like the chicken and the egg, back to the fact that it's not an approved medicine, so you can't technically call it a
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee I am not a physician, but I do communicate with many physicians regularly. I would suggest that the authorization form physicians currently have to fill out takes more time and is more onerous than filling out a prescription on a prescription pad. I think whether we call it a p
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee Certainly. You heard from Kirk Tousaw yesterday evening. I wish he were here today to speak in more detail about that case. My understanding is that the spirit of that ruling essentially ensured that there's charter protection for patients to use cannabis in all its forms. We s
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee I have some concerns about plain packaging requirements, one being that, again, it will give an advantage to unregulated producers to be able to create colourful or attractive packaging. Anything that you restrict in the legal market that the unregulated market can do is going to
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee This is a very complex issue. For a long time, the governing bodies of the pharmacies were saying that they were very opposed to medical cannabis. It is not until quite recently that they have come along, realizing that there is quite a large and profitable business to be had bei
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee I'm afraid I don't totally understand your question, because cannabis doesn't currently have any coverage. Can you reframe the question for me so I can try to do a better job of answering it?
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee There are very few. Jonathan is a bit more of an expert in that. A small handful of patients across the country have managed to advocate for themselves to acquire cost coverage for their medical cannabis, but it's very rare. This is why a lot of the recommendations that Jonathan
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee No, I think Jonathan covered it.
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee At this time for the Compassion Club, no. We have been engaged in civil disobedience for 20 years, so we don't engage in official research with the government in any way. We don't receive any kind of government subsidies. Speaking of subsidies, I want to segue a bit to let you kn
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee Even more so than data, what is important is the common-sense education around maximizing benefits and minimizing risk, and that's a place where we have a tremendous body of knowledge. There are pretty simple recommendations you can give people on how to avoid adverse effects fro
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee This is where there is some confusion. Licensed producers are able to distribute cannabis oil that is not for inhalation, but that is used for consumption. You can take the oil directly—
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black
Health committee —on a spoon or syringe, or you can take it home and produce baked goods out of it.
September 15th, 2017Committee meeting
Hilary Black